us-005578-irn514046
type: RecordSet
archival history: The figurine was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2003 by Vera Meisels.
biographical history: Vera Meisels was born on June 11, 1936, in Presov, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), to Cecilia and Zoltan Gardosh Meisels. Cecilia was born on July 5, 1909, in Trebisov to Malvina Gardosh. Zoltan was born on December 30, 1904, to Josef Meisels. Zoltan was one of seven brothers and sisters. Vera had an older sister, Aliska (Alice), born on February 24, 1932. They were an assimilated Jewish family. Zoltan and his brother, Moritz, owned a factory that produced nails for horse shoes. Nazi Germany annexed the Sudeten border region of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, and by May, the country had ceased to exist. The Slovakia region where Vera lived was ruled by the fascist regime of Jozef Tiso which was dependent upon and closely allied with Germany. In March 1942, Slovakia began to deliver its Jews into German custody for disposal per the terms of the Final Solution. Hungarian guards rounded up the Jews for transport. On March 27, 1942, while Vera and Aliska were in Trebisov visiting their maternal grandmother, guards arrived to arrest them. They wanted to take Vera and Aliska as well, but the Christian house maid persuaded them to allow her to take the girls back to their parents in Presov. They waited two days in her apartment, and then she took the girls home. Deportations also were taking place in Presov. Vera and Aliska, along with their parents, paternal uncle and aunt, Moritz (Marci) and Ilonka, and paternal grandparents were put on a cattle car headed for Lublin, Poland. At the station, they were told to get out of the railcar. After they disembarked, they saw a man named Joseph Lichardus standing with two German SS men. Lichardus had acquired the family business following its confiscation by the government. He told the SS that Zoltan and Moritz were essential for running the factory. The Meisels' house had been boarded up, so they lodged in a hotel. Lichardus sent the plant machinery to another factory he owned in Ruzomberok in western Slovakia. He moved the family there …
physical characteristics and technical requirements: Small, oblong, abstract sculpture painted brown, mostly smooth, with chisel and pit marks. A small, round, skeletal head rests in a depression on the top. There is a trough like depression down the front center, resembling a cape being drawn over hunched shoulders, with a clawed hand emerging from within the left side of the cape.
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
date: 1944 December-1945 May
has beginning date: 2002-01-01
has end date: 2002-12-31
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn514046
record resource extent: overall: Height: 4.000 inches (10.16 cm) | Width: 2.250 inches (5.715 cm) | Depth: 1.875 inches (4.763 cm)
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: Small bronze statue cast from the figurine made by Vera Meisels from a bar of washing soap shortly after her liberation from Theresienstadt concentration camp in early May 1945. This figurine was cast in 2002 because the original was drying out and losing its original shape. The work is based upon Vera's memories of the concentration camp inmates called Musselmann, prisoners near death due to exhaustion, illness, starvation, or hopelessness. In August 1944, eight year old Vera, her parents, Cecilia and Zoltan, and her 12 year old sister, Aliska, fled Ruzomberok, Czechoslovakia, after the Slovak National Uprising against the Nazi allied government. They hid in the mountains, but when they ran out of food, returned to town and were arrested by the Germans. Vera’s father was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Vera, her sister, and her mother were deported to Auschwitz, but the train was redirected to Theresienstadt because recent actions by saboteurs had destroyed parts of the camp. On May 9, 1945, the camp was liberated by the Soviet Army. Vera, Cecilia, and Aliska returned to Presov where they were reunited with Zoltan.
title: Abstract bronze statue of a concentration camp inmate made by a Czech Jewish survivor